aint sayin sooth for a song

as though past firsts have not been made and unmade

pieces of paper, lying balled-up and bored next to a digital waste bin

… well.

here goes, i suppose

hello, internet 👋🏽

i’ve been here a little while, always a lurker

would say i’m happy to be here, but that’d be misleading

hopeful is a better word

hopeful that the words i write

might help someone else feel more seen

or understood

or a little less alone

nervous too

nervous of this shameless proser’s self-indulgence

nervous to step onto a famously unforgiving stage

alongside so many other players seemingly much more deserving of a role

but hey—

you only live once, right?

fuck it,

written by Tib

i don’t like remembering

old pain

it aches and feels

heavy

sharp and numbing

an unbecoming

i don’t want to remember

it’s easier to forget

it’s easier to sleep

i’ll sleep

sleep it off

let oblivion’s bliss wash away the ache

that my bones couldn’t let

go if i tried

please

just for a bit

what am i

_looking for?_

‘reconciliation’

‘gentle reunion’

‘bittersweet’

‘catharsis’

< No results found. >

did you mean: ‘impossible closure’ or

‘undoing your grief’ or

‘forgetting your pain’ or

stupid,

naïve,

wishful

thinking

?

… i’ve never been good at

accepting

the way things are when

in my heart i know

they could be

different.

hard not to feel helpless, knowing

just how much is firmly

not

in my control.

hard not to feel hungry

for a hope that can never quite satisfy

hard not to hate myself for

having found myself here

again

how many chances did i miss,

opportunities did i let pass me by?

how many lost, how many lives, how many loves have i—

no.

i can’t

know

that.

we can never know what

might have been

so here i sit, helpless

and hungry

and hopeful and

wanting

and wanting

and wanting

and wanting

and wanting

nothing

but the utterly

written by Tib

i tried to look online for poems about

having multiple soulmates

but i couldn’t find anything that felt right

and real

and ached the way this does

so i’m writing my own:

if you were offered the chance to meet and love

the one they call a soulmate,

would you take it?

what if you knew

it wouldn’t last?

would you take it,

downfall and all?

is that not

the very definition of tragedy?

“it was always going to end like this”?

… i would.

how blessed

to be given more

than one chance to live and love alongside

someone meant to be there,

someone written and woven

by hands unseen

into what will grow into

the cool shade of faded memory

a passing place in the quiet trace of your past

how heartbreaking to think

that you might have always

been meant to

intertwine your hearts and minds

part ways after a limited time

spent hand

in hopeful hand

a gift, a grace, a glimpse

of the endless abundance of human connection and

a grief deeper and more haunting than my shadow on the wall

the very world around me, a constant reminder that we

will never again love

each other

the way we once did.

that we

may have lived

a love some

only dream of.

and everyone likes to point, to blame

like crafting a compass to grant you direction after the death of where—

no, who—

you thought we’d come to be

but sometimes,

when the phantom pain subsides enough to catch

a breath of gratitude,

i thank

all that is good and green in this world

that i found you

and you found me

even if together isn’t who we’re destined to be

the story we wrote together for a time

was beautiful and bounded

and i will spend the rest of my life

bearing this grief for you

if it meant that i

got to love you

and love again

an undoing

an unfolding

our chapter may be over

but the story

is one i am glad

written by Tib

it’s been a few years since i’ve been down to georgia

but the memories of those childhood church camp summers

still flash vivid through my mind

especially on nights like these

when the humidity and heat are like a sack over your shoulder

familiar

reminding you of where you’ve been

but unexpected somehow—

it’s been so long

climbing the weathered wooden steps to where i now call home

the air feels thick with memories and fireflies

as rabbits play red-light, green-light in my backyard

i remember those georgia nights

of s’mores and secrets

of cabins and curfews

of bunk beds and becoming

and my southern heart twinges, if only faintly,

on my homeward steps

written by Tib

i dreamt of you again last night,

driving down a nameless street

in a hometown i didn’t recognize

seeing you walking with your family

you were wearing black.

did someone die, i wondered

were you mourning me, i hoped

you had a new sibling

their hair a fair bundle of curls

toddling next to your mother

whose eyes brimmed with tears

for reasons i will never know

i wanted so badly for you not to notice me driving by—

not to recognize the face of someone i feared you hated

i wanted so badly to turn around and stop the car

and cry and hope you wouldn’t hurt me

i haven’t seen you in almost a year

i wish it didn’t have to be this way

i don’t know if you even care